All jealousy aside, Kevin Tofel of JKontherun got a first glimpse at the Webconnect Rocket, T-Mobile’s first foray into HSPA+ USB modem goodness. In a word, “wow,” the speeds he experienced are everything we can hope for, with the best yet to come. At best, he saw 9.11 Mbps on the download side. Damn, that’s fast.

With plug-and-play installation, a microSD memory slot and speeds that will impress your mom, the Webconnect rocket should impress even the most stalwart T-Mobile user. While an HSPA+ rollout still may be months down the road for a large contingent of T-Mobile subscribers, the wait should be more than worth it. Though of course, if the USB modem isn’t your cup of tea, this is just a preview of what future HSPA+ devices should be capable of. Kevin does make note that all speeds are theoretical and it’s likely no one will ever see 21 Mbps of usage. Instead you are likely to only see half of those speeds, which for most users are plenty fast. Thankfully, you’ll still be faster than traditional broadband speeds with more than enough horsepower to meet your daily mobile browsing needs.

For the full results, take a glance at the full article on JKontherun.

About David Beren

David is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TmoNews.com. He considers himself a Jedi Knight, capable of leaping tall buildings in a single bound and a connoisseur of fine cell phones. He has been involved in the wireless industry since 2003 and has been known to swap out phones far too many times in any given year. Should you wish to contact him, you can do so: david@tmonews.com.

Those speeds are fast enough to be a home broadband replacement. As long as the data cap isn’t too low, I can see lots of people opting to cancel their cable/DSL and simply have the Rocket. That’s a pretty cool possibility.

watbetch

This is just for the light user, the mentioned WiMAX is pathetic. Getting those speeds quoted in the article would be a godsend at 3am.

niididy

I agree!!

FILA

pretty nice. T-Mobile is also coming out with that Dell Netbook next month, sooo I think were see 21Mbps out of that to, but theres always tethering!

alex

I don’t understand the point of these. Data for this will probably cost ~$50/month. Why not just tether your phone? It is one less thing to carry around and data can be as cheap as $2.99(although $20 for most people)

ps

try $25-$30 for most people

Pavan

1) You need to buy a new phone that supports HSPA
2) The grandfathered T.Zones plan won’t work with it
3) The target audience, business users, thinks tethering is something that involves punching an inflated ball in circles around a pole. They want connections with near 100% up time, and don’t want to mess with pushing buttons to get everything going each time.

beastly

$60/month according to the T-Mobile website. Maximum of 5GB data, and 20 cents per KB after that. Don’t try streaming a bunch of movies, or you’ll find a thousand-dollar bill in the mail.

Tethering my Blackberry has no data usage limit, and no overages, which is worth a lot more to me than HSPA+ speeds. Why can I get 10 GB data on my phone for $20 a month, but would have to pay $260 for the same 10 GB using a USB stick? Especially considering how the new Blackberry software makes tethering ridiculously easy.

eli_the_great89

Very true. But unfortunately T-Mobile doesn’t support / offer tethering capabilities despite some of their phones having the ability to.

I guess its good to have options though.

podstolom

I think embedded modems give better reception especially at the higher frequencies that t-mobile uses because they can use better antennas and I would like to see t-mo start putting out some of these with this HSPA+ rollout. An HSPA+/LET combo embedded card in a netbook would be nice.

alex

Why can the USB stick have a better antenna than a phone which is bigger?

Usman

Antenna’s in phones don’t take up the entire phone… on the N1 for example, the antenna is just about half of the lower rubberized part in the back of the phone.

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